Do you let your child play with your cell phone??
By mommyboo
@mommyboo (13174)
United States
October 17, 2010 2:25pm CST
I'm not talking about you're at the store and your 10 year old wants to call dad to remind him about the baseball game, or you were supposed to bring the 8 year old to her friend's sleepover but you;re running late so she wants to tell her friend she didnt' forget.
I'm talking about toddlers and very young school age. I saw a link that said 'mommy's iPhone is baby's favorite new toy'. Excuse me. An iPhone is not a toy. No cell phone is. I will tell you, MY cell phone is a tool. I use it not just for calls and texting but for keeping in touch via email with my husband during the day. I also get online and have paid bills and set up things on my dvr.... researched activities or trips.
My daughter is 6 and she has NEVER whined, cried, tantrumed, kicked, screamed, or otherwise in order to try to get me to give her my phone to play with. EVER. I didn't give it to her when she was younger and I don't give it to her now. Granted, if she was bored I could open up an app for a game and she could play it, or I could turn on the music player, or pop up a youtube video, but if she EVER demanded to be able to use or play with my phone, the answer would be a resounding NO.
I don't get anybody who allows this behavior by thinking it's 'cute' to hand their phone to a 2 year old. I have also had friends who have had their cell phones snatched from their toddlers' hands because small children holding expensive electronics are easy targets in parking lots when mom's back is turned for a second loading the trunk or if the baby drops the phone in the cart and someone grabs it from the cart.
We are producing a nation of babies and toddlers who think they own the cell phones. Last year a little boy in my daughter's kindergarten class got ahold of his mother's cell phone and somehow ordered $50 worth of apps. This is insane.
If you let your child play with your cell phone, why do you do it? Do you actually enjoy the tantrums in public or at home when you are actually USING it and you don't want you child to have it? Are you aware that if you never let them think they could play with it, that wouldn't be happening?
1 person likes this
11 responses
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
18 Oct 10
hi mommyboo I do not have a cell phone but a few years back a friend of mine in our diabetic seminar was in tears. she had let her seven year old have her cell phone since he was four okay now the little demon ran up three hundred dollars worth of calls to some kid in a foreign country and now she must pay, only problem her husband was overseas and she did not have that much spare cash on hand. why on earth she let him use her cell phone I told her to tell them he was not authorized to do that and finally they found that someone in the company was also too blame as he had doubled what the real amount should have been and was going to take the over charge out for himself so both the employee and the kid were to blame. they did finally give in and write the whole thing off with the provision she not let him touch the cell phone again.but that sort of queered me on getting one as I do not have money like that to spend on phone bills.
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
18 Oct 10
Aside from the overcharges the employee added to her bill.. the mom should have been responsible for it. She was the one who let the kid play with it, so she should take responsiblity for her actions. You can't blame a child.. they don't know any better.. they don't understand about fees and restrictions and long distance calling. The mother should have been supervising the child while he was using her phone.. so it's her fault, not the kid's.
1 person likes this
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
20 Oct 10
I don't even use my phone for anything other than making phone calls and sending text messages. That said, my children aren't allowed to play with my phone. The only time that they are allowed to put their hands on the phone is when they ask me if they are allowed to call their grandmother or Nana or for my seven year old on the rare occasions that she wants to call one of her friends. The phone wasn't a toy when I was a child and I don't think the phone should be a toy now.
@djbtol (5493)
• United States
18 Oct 10
I have also read about a mom allowing hear young child to use her iphone. The phone had apps that were suited to little children. Like changing shapes and designs caused by movement of the phone.
Sometimes with children this saying applies, "If you give them an inch, they will want a mile". Once a child has an expectation of playing with the phone, they will want it over and over. If they have never know that option, the thought won't cross their mind - until the see another child doing it!
Sometimes tantrums and fits can be subsided with a bribe/reward system, but often the child will not learn until you use the "bad behaviour has bad consequences" approach.
@34momma (13882)
• United States
18 Oct 10
I'm with you... I don't allow my children or any child for that matter play with my cellphone or anything that I need or want. My sister allowed her 1 year old to play with her cell phone. My niece always put that nasty thing in her month and got so much spit in the phone you could not have a conversation with my sister on the phone cause you couldn't hear anything she said. She had to get a new phone.
I don't ever allow any children or child play with things that cost that kind of money and things that i need to use every single day. rather cell phone, house phone, tv remote, computer, wallet, purse, nothing of vaule.
@potatobutt87 (348)
• United States
18 Oct 10
I guess I'm the minority here. being a 23yo mother of a almost 4yo and a 6mo.
My youngest daughter has ALMOST just recently ruined my phone from crewing on it. My oldest daugher has ruined about 3 cell phones in her toddler life :)
Kids just LOVE anything they cant have. I dont care. I buy the cheapest phone, becaause the phone doesn't mean much to me. I could live without my cell phone for days. The only person I REALLY talk to is my mom. Although I do like to have it for emergencys. I dont really see the big deal in it. I do understand if its a REALLY expensive phone, but I dont have a need for one.
I'm not sure why you have such a fit over this either. as long as its not your phone why does it matter what other people do? ive NEVER seen a child throw a fit because of a phone.
@kukueye (1759)
• Malaysia
18 Oct 10
yes once a while i give my toddler around 2 years old to play with the handphone for awhile just to distract him when he is agitated or become too boring.Usually will let him snap pictures and such.Which is harmless because it can be deleted later.Sometime he wills scroll down the song list to play some short music.Only play in private house setting or inside the car.Playing hp outside is dangerous to the kids because my local areas there is alot of snacth thief.And i wish not to spoilt the toddler at young age.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
18 Oct 10
Remember the days when we used to just let our kids play with our keys to keep them occupied when we forgot to bring toys?
There's been a time or two I've let my kids play with my phone. Once was when I was waiting down at child support and forgot toys for my son who was like 2 at the time.. so I gave him my phone. It didn't cause any issues.. he didn't constantly ask for it after that.
More recently my hubby used his phone to show our 2 toddlers a Disney cartoon. For the rest of that day they did continue to bug him to watch more TV on his phone.. but after he said no a few times they stopped bugging him.
The problem is not parents letting the kids play with the phones once or twice.. the problem is when the kids ask to play with the phone and the parents give in to "shut the kid up". The kid sees that if he/she whines or cries long enough mom will give them what they want.. so the whining and crying gets worse each time until it's full blown temper tantrum because this behavior has worked before and should be working now!
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
18 Oct 10
Hi mommyboo! What a great discussion! I had never thought about
this before! I definitely agree with you that some parents don't
think before handing over a cell phone to their children and they
definitely hand them over to kids way to young these days! But,
I must admit I never thought of kids that young being handed a
cell phone to "play" with! I have only seen "older kids" and
adults "playing" with their phones. That, to me is a really scary
thought, now that you mention it and I am definitely 100% against
it! It is bad enough seeing tweens, teens and adults texting
all the time and at the wrong times (while driving), but to
think that little ones are now being handed cell phones "to play
with" is definitely alarming!
@wonttakelong (3555)
• United States
18 Oct 10
absolutely NOT!!
cell phones are NOT toys!
I see parents do this and it makes me cringe
I have seen a few people hand their phones to their toddlers and then get mad because the toddlers drops it or throws it 
I feel like reaching out and smacking the parent and saying "hey dumba$$, if you hadnt given it to them it wouldnt have got broke"
I feel like reaching out and smacking the parent and saying "hey dumba$$, if you hadnt given it to them it wouldnt have got broke" @sender621 (14894)
• United States
18 Oct 10
A cell phone is not a toy, It should be used with care. it is all right for a child to play a game on a cellphone aas long as it is done with proper supervision.
@monsterfishlover (222)
• Philippines
18 Oct 10
Never do that, never let them play with a cell phone. These device creates a radiation that is very harmful to the kids.
